For the sake of the environment, the economy and individual citizen health, we hope it's a final flop on the issue for Congress.

Republicans said they were worried that energy costs might rise (imagine) and the economy might somehow suffer. The hoax, or misplaced fretting, about the economy is an enduring one that has helped block transportation and environmental gains since at least four decades.

As a playing of 1968 speeches by Robert F. Kennedy on KUOW radio reminded us, wise political leaders have long known that investing in efficient transportation and a clean environment would pay off in job creation. Talking with business leaders in Los Angeles, for instance, Kennedy foresaw the need to build transit systems for the anticipated addition of 100 million Americans to the 200 million then living.

Well, 40 years and 104 million more of us later, Americans are trying to get out of their SUVS, pickups and oversized cars to switch to smaller cars, (still-skeletal) transit systems or even bike lanes. While other nations benefit from decades of investment in efficient transportation, energy and waste systems, a Senate minority still has enough votes and gall to decide now is no time for change.

After the coming presidential and congressional elections, it will be time to begin catching up with the advanced parts of the world on climate and the jobs that can come from conservation, transit and new forms of energy. As Climate Solutions, University of Washington scientists and others have reminded the region, the region has a lot to gain in moving forward in the absence of national leadership.

But the world needs the United States as a whole to help lead on global warming. Soon.